FBCPS
Sermons, teachings, and podcasts from First Baptist Church in Powder Springs, Georgia.
FBCPS
God’s Witnesses on Repeat | Deuteronomy 30-31
How does witnessing greatness, whether on the basketball court or through the majestic beauty of creation, shape our spiritual journey? This episode invites you to explore this question as we reflect on the incredible stories of faith and service in our community. We honor the veterans who have safeguarded our freedom and spotlight the vibrant life at the First Baptist Church in Powder Springs. Exciting updates await, including the upcoming Lottie Moon Sunday and Pastor Alan Davis's retirement after 42 years of inspiring service.
We dive into the essence of finding true and abundant life through Jesus Christ, drawing on powerful scriptures like John 14:6 and John 10:10. The beauty of creation and the steadfast presence of God guide us through life's challenges, reminding us of His promises. Our discussion also highlights the awe-inspiring power of God's glory witnessed through the natural world and scripture, as well as the significant role of the Ark of the Covenant. We share personal experiences that evoke deep worship and connection to God, emphasizing the transformative impact of scripture and faith.
Stories of devotion unfold as we celebrate the impact of missionaries like Marilyn Laszlo and the responsibility of being God's witnesses. Our conversation underscores the believer's privilege to share faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit. We reflect on the symbolism of the Ark's contents and how God's word offers hope and strength. As we stand together in prayer and worship, we embrace our mission to live out and share the gospel, inspiring others with our personal stories. Join us in this journey of faith, love, and obedience, united through the power of God's presence.
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If you're one of the veterans of our armed forces and military, would you please stand right now, just so we can honor you and appreciate you. All veterans in the room Please stand right now. Let's put our hands together for all of our veterans. Thank you so much for your service for our protection, for our freedom. We thank you, we honor you, we appreciate you. Happy Veterans Day to you.
Speaker 1:Welcome to First Baptist Church, powder Springs. It is so good to see all of your smiling faces this morning. God is working among us. He's doing so many things and we are just so thankful. God is here with us and his presence is all that matters. We believe that here today. I want you to know that God is. He's not just here with us, but he is working among us. He's working in our church. He's working in changing people's lives.
Speaker 1:Just last week you heard us announcing toward our Next Step lunch that we had last Sunday. I want you to know we had some 17 different guests in our Next Step lunch and here are just some of the decisions that people made through our Next Step Lunch last week. People made decisions for salvation, for baptism, to join the church, to join our groups, to join in our ministries, to serve in our ministries and to get more involved. Would you put your hands together for them and for all that God is doing just in people's lives here in Powder Springs? And so we're just thankful, and so many of you have even asked what can we do? How can we get more involved? Obviously we're growing and we're seeing God do more and more in our lives and our ministries. How can we help? Thank you so much for always asking that and I wanna give you just one opportunity. Is that right now we do have an opportunity in our kids ministry to serve in our ones and two year olds during the 930 hour. So before this hour, during the 930 hour, you would be able to serve in that way. So if you are interested, you can always go and talk to Cindy Smith. If you know her, you can call the church office or you can write it on the back of your Next Step card and put it in one of our Next Step stations this morning. And because we always want to disciple every generation, but we want to prioritize the next generation and make sure that we are teaching our children about the Lord Jesus. So that is there in our KidVenture ministry Also in two Sundays. So next Sunday is our Lottie Moon Sunday, but the Sunday after that is Pastor Alan Davis's Retirement Sunday after 42 plus years of ministry and faithful service at First Baptist Church, powder Springs, put your hands together for Pastor Alan Davis. He truly is the man, the myth and the legend and he has just been through so much here and we are so thankful for his ministry. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be able to have served with him over this past year and I just could not be more thankful for Pastor Allen Davis.
Speaker 1:Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, god, this morning, this is your church, god, we're about to hear your word. God, we are your people. So, father, I just pray in Jesus' name, god, that you would speak to us through your Holy Spirit for the exaltation of your son Jesus Christ. God, we love you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. In all God's people said amen.
Speaker 1:Open up your Bible to Deuteronomy, chapter 30, with me this morning, please. Deuteronomy, chapter 30, as we are continuing to go through our series called Repeat. In fact, do you believe it? This is our last message in the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, this is our last message through the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible and or, as the Jews might call, the Torah. And this morning we get to experience how God closes up not just only the book of Deuteronomy but also the first five books of the Bible, and this morning it is all about witnesses. Everybody say witnesses, witnesses. It's a very interesting, it's a very rare, it's a very unique passage of scripture that really we only see God uniquely personally talk about in the end of Deuteronomy, and it's all about how God calls heaven and earth to witness us, how God calls heaven and earth to witness us. So this week I was just thinking about some different parts of heaven and earth that I have had the opportunity just to witness throughout my life. So I was thinking about one of them was I was on a week-long canoeing and portaging adventure trip with some brothers and sisters of the faith of mine when I was in college and we were up in Canada and there was one night that we got to see the northern lights.
Speaker 1:Have you ever seen the northern lights before? The Aurora Borealis, absolutely beautiful, and you know you can't help. But when you see the Northern Lights you just can't help but worship God because they're so glorious. They're so beautiful, they're so magnificent. I remember, probably about 20 years ago, I got to be in Uganda, africa, and in Uganda is where the source of the Nile River is, and so I got to be on the Nile River. I got to take a river safari and got to see all the wildlife in and around the Nile River and the Nile River is the longest river in the world. Obviously it plays a major part in the Old Testament and it was just, it was breathtaking, it was incredible.
Speaker 1:I got to ride a four-wheeler and a motorcycle across Africa all that week with a missionary friend of mine and we would cross over the Nile River every day. We would blow through African villages. Little Uganda children would come out when they would hear the four-wheeler and the motorcycle coming down their dirt roads and they would come out and they would say Mzungu, mzungu, mzungu, which meant white man, white man, white man. Right, they just wanted to just to wave and smile and I mean we would get off and we would just give them hugs and take their picture and shake their hands and just, the most unbelievable people there in Uganda, africa, had the most amazing experience.
Speaker 1:I remember just a few years ago you might've heard me tell a little bit about before, but I got to go to the Amazon jungle and to be also on the Amazon river. I was there. The Amazon is known as the most uncontacted people on the planet, people that have never even been contacted by the outside culture. Right, all they know is the jungle. And so we got to be on the river, we got to be in the jungle. I remember there was one day that I was hiking out of the jungle. We were miles into the Amazon jungle and I looked down and my cell phone had service. So I called back. We were in Virginia at the time. I called back and I called my wife and she hadn't heard from me in a few days because I was in Brazil. And she said hey, what are you doing? I said I am in the Amazon jungle right now. What are you doing? Right, it was crazy. I did not know that we could have cell service in the Amazon jungle and she was probably on Amazon shopping at the same time on amazoncom.
Speaker 1:So we were all Amazon-ing at that moment in time, and so we love seeing beautiful parts of God's creation and then we love to take pictures. We love to tell people about it. Maybe you're a beach person. How many of y'all are beach people? Raise your hand, you'd rather be at the beach right now. How many of y'all are you're mountain people. You love to get on the mountains. You love the cold, crisp air. Maybe you love the snow. How many of y'all are lake people? You love to go on the lake and get on the jet ski and get on the boat and all of that right.
Speaker 1:So we're all kind of different creation people and God has wired you in that way he's created you in that way to have some type of connection with creation that he has created. And we love when we see things that maybe other people don't get to see. We love to take pictures and we love to show them, and that means that we're being a witness of creation to them. What is a witness? A witness is someone who experiences something for themselves and tells it to someone else. A witness is simply someone that experiences something for themselves and tells about it to someone else. So this morning, as we're looking at the book of Deuteronomy finishing Deuteronomy that God says look at how heaven and earth are witnesses. Now, just as we conclude it, I wanna remind you that Deuteronomy we called it repeat. Everybody say repeat. We called it repeat because what is God doing.
Speaker 1:We're seeing the people of God at the end of their 40 year desert, wilderness journey. They are on the banks of the Jordan River and they're overseeing that part of creation. They're overseeing it, they're looking into the promised land, the very land that they have been wandering toward, the very land that God has promised them, and they're seeing this unbelievable scene and they're about to take what the Lord has given them. But God calls them to stop. You ever felt like your life was on pause. You ever felt like you're not going anywhere. You ever felt like your life is not moving forward. It may be that God is calling you to stop and God calls them to stop and God says I want to remind you who I am. I want to remind you my word. I want to remind you of my love. I wanna remind you of my love. I wanna remind you of my laws, so that when I hit go, when I hit play, then you will be reminded how to live for me again.
Speaker 1:You've heard me say that Deuteronomy was the most quoted book Old Testament book of the Bible by Jesus. They would ask Jesus hard questions. He would often take them to the book of Deuteronomy, which means that Deuteronomy might be Jesus's favorite book of the Old Testament. I've told you that it was. We've studied the last five weeks that it was in the same form of an ancient peace treaty.
Speaker 1:A world superpower nation during that time would come alongside a powerless, a weak nation, a weaker nation, and say we will protect you, we will give you our loyalty if you assimilate into us, if you give us your loyalty. And this is what Jesus is saying to you, to me, to us, through the book of Deuteronomy, that he is the world's superpower. We are weak and powerless and God is saying I will give you peace, I will give you protection, I will give you love. God is saying I just want you to love me, I just want you to worship me, I just want you to believe in me, I just want you to live for me. And this morning is the witnesses that God calls. And so here's what we see this morning is God's witnesses on repeat. Here we go, god's witnesses on repeat. So, number one we're going to look at three witnesses this morning. Number one is the world. Everybody say world, world. The world is God's witness.
Speaker 1:Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 19,. He says I call heaven and earth. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, he says choose life that you and your offspring may live. It's interesting whenever these countries would come into a peace treaty together, typically what they would do is they would call on their gods to be the witnesses of the peace treaty. But obviously God is making a peace treaty with his people, the people of Israel, and he cannot call on any other gods because he is the only one true living God. And so who does God call on to be the witnesses of the treaty?
Speaker 1:Again a very rare piece of scripture, we see that God calls on heaven and earth to be our witnesses and to be our witnesses to do what he says. To be our witnesses because he has set life and death and blessing and curse before us and he tells us to therefore choose life. Everyone say life. He calls us to choose life. Here's what God is saying for you. God is saying that he has life for you. In other words, how is your life going? Would you say that your life feels more like life or does it feel more like death? Does your life feel more like blessing or does your life feel more like curse? Because God is saying that he wants to be your life. He is calling you to choose life by choosing him. In other words, life is a choice.
Speaker 1:Do you want true life? Do you want real life? Jesus said in John 14, six Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life, in that no one comes to the Father but by me. You wanna experience the real life that you have been created to experience. It is through Jesus. John, chapter 10, verse 10,. Jesus said and I came, and I came to give you life, and I came to give it to you abundantly, which means that Jesus came to give you more life than you could ever experience on your own. He came to give you an abundance of life.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes we hear that and we run that through the grid, we run that through the filter of our life and we think well, not me, my life's not blessed, I'm not experiencing all this life. Pastor Chip, you don't know the pain, you don't know the difficulty, you don't know the challenges, you don't know the suffering that I'm going through. So where is God's promises, where's God's abundance in my life. Remember, as we talked about last week, when we talked about blessing and curse if you missed it, go back and listen to it that God's blessing in our life is not, and his promise in your life is not to always make you feel comfortable. It's for your life to not always be easy, that everything is not always simple and everything won't always go your way. The way that God gives you life is that God puts himself in your life, and God is the greatest blessing to your life. And so God promises, and he blesses you, to walk with you through all of life. And so how do we see that God is going to give us this life?
Speaker 1:Here's what God says. How do we get life? He says it's by loving the Lord, your God. It's simply by loving God, by obeying his voice, by holding fast to him. Why? Because he is our life, he's our length of days that we may dwell, that we may live in this land that he's given to us. That the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac. In other words, do you want real life? It comes from your love for God, because he loved you first. He sent Jesus into life, to the earth in order to die so that you could have life, in order to forgive you of your sins, so that you would not live for sin, you'd not live for self, you'd not live for evil, but you would live for God, and that's he is in which we find our real, our true life that he has created us for, and so the Bible says. God is saying then that he has remember, he has set up heaven and earth to be our witness. Why? Because when we're struggling through life, when you have doubts, when you have questions, when you have hurts, when you have fears, this is the way that God has created the universe, that God wants you to walk outside and to experience him in a powerful way. Let me show you.
Speaker 1:It says here in Romans, chapter 120, for all of God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power Everyone say power God's eternal power, his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made, so that they so that we, so that me, so that you, so that us, so that me, so that you so that us, so that we are without excuse. In other words, when we go outside and we see the creation and we see the sky and we see the sun and we see the moon and we see the stars and we see the earth and we see the trees and we see the plants and we see the animals and we see people, the image of God walking around, and we see the animals and we see people, the image of God, walking around. There is no other way to think about it than God is real, that God exists and he created it all and he has eternal power. Can I get an amen? So when we go outside and we look around, creation is created so that we see him.
Speaker 1:Psalm 19, one and two says the heavens declare the glory of God. Everyone say glory. The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge. So when we go outside and we see the heavens, we see the skies, we're just seeing a glimpse, we're just seeing a taste of the glory of God, and the way that creation is designed is to invoke glory within us for who God is.
Speaker 1:He goes on to say in Hosea 6.3,. He says let us acknowledge the Lord, let us press on to acknowledge him as surely as the sun rises, god will appear. God will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains, that water the earth. In other words, we see the faithfulness of God. Faithfulness of God Just as from season to season to season, as the sun rises every day, as rains come throughout every season. We see this faithfulness of God through the creation. Then it reminds us that God, if he's faithful in the creation, then he is faithful to me, is faithful in the creation, then he is faithful to me.
Speaker 1:Psalm, chapter 36, verse 6, says God, your righteousness is like the highest mountains. Your justice is like the great deep. In other words, back then you would look up a mountain. You would not be able to see the top of the mountain, they would not have all the pictures that we have, all of the knowledge of mountains. So it looks like an endless mountain top. In other words, god's righteousness is endless in your life. The great deep. They would not know how deep the seas, how deep the oceans are, because no one had ever been down there. And what they're saying is God, your justice is as deep as the seas, as deep as the oceans. God is saying that he has created the creation to put on display his glory.
Speaker 1:I remember years ago when I had a chance to go to Jamaica Actually, I talked to one of our greeters this morning in our sanctuary service and her name is Carol and she is from Jamaica. We got to talk about goat soup together. I've had goat soup it sounds better than it is and I was in Jamaica and I remember one night, being on this mission trip in Jamaica, we were underneath the clearest starry sky that I had ever seen in my life and we're overlooking the Caribbean Sea underneath the sky and we just could not help it. We just all as a group of 25. So, college students, we just start worshiping God. Why? Because the creation was witnessing to us.
Speaker 1:The Hebrew word witness is ood. Everyone say ood. Ood is that word, and ood means to witness, hear me. It means to testify, it means to proclaim, it means to declare what was that starry night sky in Jamaica doing, declaring the glory of God. The world is a witness to you. When you're wondering about the power of God, when you're wondering about the faithfulness of God, when you're wondering about the beauty of God, the majesty of God, I wanna encourage you. What the Bible tells us to do is to go outside and see the creation of God. It reminds us who God is. It reminds us what God has promised to us. I also want you to see and just remember as he calls heaven and earth to be our witnesses, it is they are witnessing to us. They're declaring to us to love God, to obey God, to hold fast to God that he is our life and that we live with God Also. Number two the word is our witness. Everyone say word. The word of God is our witness. Deuteronomy, chapter 31, verse 26.
Speaker 1:God tells Moses, he says I want you to go and I want you to take the book of the law. Take the book of the law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant, of the Covenant of the Lord, your God, that it may be there as a witness for you. What was the book of the law? The book of the law was the first five books of the Bible, what we've just studied together over this past year. And God said I want you to go in, I want you to lay it beside the Ark of the Covenant.
Speaker 1:What was the Ark of the Covenant? It was that box that God commanded them to overlay with gold and that God told them to put it in the Holy of Holies. It was the last room of the temple and in that last room only one person could go in, only one day a year the high priest, on the day of atonement. And in that room was the Ark of the Covenant, and the lid of the box had angel wings, the wings of cherubim. And the Bible says that a pillar of cloud would come down from the heavens and rest on those wings, which was the mercy seat during the day, in a pillar of fire. The presence of God would come out of the heavens and rest on the mercy seat every single night, and the presence of God was in their midst.
Speaker 1:The Bible says that what God told them to put into the Ark of the Covenant were three things Number one stone tablets of the 10 commandments. Number two the jar of manna, showing God's faithfulness of providing for his people. Number three the rod of earrings, showing that God is the one who sets up leadership among his people. Number three the rod of airing, showing that God is the one who sets up leadership among his people. And so God says now what I want you to do is I want you to take the book of the law the law in Hebrew is Torah, and I want you to lay it beside the Ark of the Covenant, reminding us this that it is God's word that is our witness, reminding us to live our lives for him. In other words, if you're struggling in life again in your faith, with doubts and fears and questions, I wanna encourage you that the greatest witness in your life is God's word, because when you read God's word, you're reminded it's full of people that are going through suffering, full of people that are going through pain, full of people that have doubts, full of people that have fears, full of people that have anxiety, full of people that are going through very difficult times in life, and we get to see God's faithfulness to them through it all. As we are celebrating Lottie Moon Sunday next Sunday and we are finding our part in how we can partner with missionaries around the world and taking the gospel to people that have never heard about salvation in Jesus.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite missionary stories of all time is by a single lady by the name of Marilyn Laszlo, who gave 30 years of her life to reach one tribal group of people in Papua New Guinea. She goes to Papua New Guinea, and these people have never been reached before by a missionary. They knew nothing about Jesus and in fact they were so remote that they had never had their language written down. Marilyn Laszlo goes in not knowing their language, spends 30 years of her life pointing at things and they would tell her what the word is for tree in their language and she would write it down phonetically on a piece of paper. She went through everything she possibly could and she learned their entire language and during that time she phonetically wrote down their entire language. And then she teaches them, for the first time in the history of their people group, to read and write their own language. And then Marilyn Laszlo translates the entire Bible in their language, sends it off to be published. They bound it into books and there's this.
Speaker 1:You can watch it on YouTube. It's called Mission Possible, marilyn Laszlo, and you see these boats coming down the river, stacked high of Bibles, and there's people from this tribe jumping up and down on the banks of the river, screaming the word of God has arrived. The word of God has arrived. The word of God has arrived. I want you to remind you on a daily basis of who he is and his love for you and his work in your life. Because even when it doesn't look like it, even when it doesn't feel like it, god is bringing about his purposes. Even through the pain, he's bringing about his promises, even through all of the difficulty. God is showing us in life that when we struggle, that when we hurt, that Romans 1.17 says that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Meaning, if you need more faith in your life, if you need more hope, if you need more joy, if you need more strength, you cannot find that within yourself. It is found in God himself. You go to the word of God and allow God to speak to you, allow God to work in your life, allow God to strengthen you and let him do the work in you. If you believe that, say amen.
Speaker 1:We believe that God's voice is in God's word, that God's power is in God's word. We believe that God changes our lives and he strengthens our life in and through his word. So, first of all, the world is our witness, second of all, that the word is our witness and then, thirdly, then we therefore are God's witnesses. Everybody say we, we are God's witnesses. Out of Deuteronomy Acts, chapter 1, 8, some of Jesus' last words to his disciples. And he said but you will receive power. You will receive power. So often when we read the Bible, we see the word you. We don't think God is talking about us. We think that God's talking about somebody else. We think that God's talking about them, but God's talking about you. Everybody say you Go and look at the person next to you and tell them you, god's talking about you.
Speaker 1:God is saying that when you get saved, when you give your life to Jesus, when you believe that he is the Lord of your life, when you believe that he has died on the cross for your sin, that he has risen from the dead and you've called on him to be your Lord, then you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. When does the Holy Spirit come upon you? The Holy Spirit comes upon you at your salvation. You don't have to do anything for the Holy Spirit to come upon you. It's not by a work, it's by faith, because with Jesus comes the Holy Spirit. So notice you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. By the way, that word power is dunamis. It's where we get the word dynamite. God is saying as we would use dynamite for tunnels or for mining, to blow up to make passageways through hard rock. God is saying he's given you the power to be a witness, to break through the hard hearts of other people to make a passageway for the gospel of Jesus Christ to come to them. That we have the power of God when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and here's what he says you will be my witnesses. Did you know that word witness in the Greek is martus, and martus is where we get the word martyr.
Speaker 1:Every time we witness to someone, we are sacrificing ourselves for the sake of Jesus Christ. Why is it and when is it the times that we don't witness? It's because we think that we have something greater to lose, when, if we don't, they have the greatest to lose the opportunity of knowing who Jesus is. He says that my spirit has come upon you. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea, samaria and the ends of the earth. Jerusalem was their immediate context. For us, it would be our family, our friends, the relationships, the people that we know. Judea is their surrounding community. It would be where we go.
Speaker 1:Samaria the Samaritans were often hated because they were known as mixed religiously and culturally, and that Samaria is an opportunity to remind you, to remind me, to remind us that we don't just witness to people who are like us, we don't just witness to people who look like us, we don't just witness to people who believe, like us, that God has called us to witness to every single person on the planet, because every person is equally created in his image and Jesus died for each and every single person, and he says that we take it to the ends of the earth. In other words, I would just encourage you, first of all, just to witness to somebody. Maybe you haven't been witnessing lately. Just ask God, pray to God, god, would you use me this week just to witness to somebody. Would you use me this week to tell somebody about Jesus, to tell somebody what Jesus did for me, to tell somebody about Jesus' death and resurrection and salvation that he has for them? And then, when you witness to somebody, god shows you then that you are able to witness to anybody. And then, when we feel that power of the Holy Spirit that we're able to witness to anybody, then we can move on and we can witness to everybody.
Speaker 1:I think about 20 years ago when, interestingly enough, when LeBron James started, the league started in the NBA and he was the youngest MVP of all time. The posters that went out, the signs that went out, the t-shirts that went out, you know what they all read we are all witnesses. Because they thought they were watching the goat, but they weren't, because it's Jordan, they weren't watching the goat, they were watching LeBron. No offense, lebron, if you're watching, you're not, that's okay. But isn't it interesting how there is something so deep within humanity that that is what they felt, that we are witnesses of greatness. And so are we something even far greater we are witnesses of Jesus. What is witnessing?
Speaker 1:I heard a story this week about a soldier who went to the White House to see the president, abraham Lincoln. And he went to the White House and the soldier went up to the gate and he said I'm here to see the president. And the guard at the gate laughed at him Soldier, son, the president is too busy for you. Soldier went over and he started crying because he wanted to see the president. A little boy who was watching got off the park bench and walked up to the soldier and he said sir, can I help you? And he said I wanna see the president. And the little boy took his hand and he took him up to the gate and they walked right past the guard and the guard never said anything. And the little boy took the soldier's hand and he walked him into the White House and people were looking and guards were watching, but no one was moving a muscle and everyone just let them walk right in. He walked the soldier all the way up to the Oval Office and opened the door. There's Abraham Lincoln sitting at his desk and the little boy walked up past everybody in the office, walked straight up to the president, and President Lincoln looked the little boy in the eyes and he said hey, son, who do you have with you today? And the little boy said dad, this soldier would like to talk to you, so I thought I'd bring him to you.
Speaker 1:That's our opportunity to witness. We have a relationship and a right with the most powerful being in the universe, god himself, and he calls himself your heavenly father and, through Jesus, his son. You have the right to access his very throne room and you get to bring people with you and tell them about him, so that they can find their salvation in him too. Can we all bow our heads and close our eyes this morning With every head bowed and every eye closed. Maybe you're here right now.
Speaker 1:You're here this morning and maybe you just need to be reminded that God actually created the world. He made all creation to remind you, to declare, to put on display who he is. It's witnessing to you, make. You need to be reminded this morning that the word of God in your life is not to be a burden, it's to be a blessing. The word of God in your life is not to be a have to, it's to be a get to, and God just wants to speak to you. The word of God is written to witness to you, to remind you of who he is and what he's doing. Maybe you need to be reminded this morning that Jesus gives you the power of the Holy Spirit for one specific purpose to be his witness. And I just want you to tell God right now who is it that he has placed in your life to witness to, and ask him for the power of the Holy Spirit to tell them about him. And maybe you're here this morning and you're not ready for that yet, because you haven't given your life to God, and I wanna encourage you right here, right now, that you could call on him and he could save you. He could become your father, you could become his child.
Speaker 1:You can pray something like this in your heart to God and he's promised to save you. You can pray and you can say dear God, I believe in you, god, I need you. God, I believe that your son Jesus died on the cross for my sins. So, god, I believe that your son Jesus died on the cross for my sins. So, god, I pray and I ask you to forgive me of all of my sin. And, god, I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. He's alive, he's real and I wanna live for him. I wanna turn from my sin, I wanna turn to your son and I wanna live for him. I want to turn from my sin, I want to turn to your son and I want to live for Jesus.
Speaker 1:And the Bible says if you confess Jesus as your Lord, you will be saved. Right here, right now, you can confess Jesus. You can say Jesus be the Lord of my life, be my God, be my savior. You say it. God promises to save you. We believe that, god, and we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, and all God's people said amen.
Speaker 1:Put your hands together this morning for anybody that gave their life to Jesus. We're so thankful for what God is doing in all of our lives and in our church, and this morning maybe God is working in you. You need to grab a next step card and let us know how we can help you. Maybe you've made a decision for salvation. Maybe you need to be baptized. Maybe God is calling you to join the church, to serve in some way, to be a part of our groups. You can indicate that on the card and you can turn those cards in at the end of the service to our next step station or one of our boxes here around the building.
Speaker 1:But right now I just wanna ask you that we would all stand together and we're gonna pray and we're gonna worship God.
Speaker 1:We're gonna worship God because of who he is, because of all that he's done.
Speaker 1:I believe this is one of the most important moments in our life every opportunity that we have to worship him with our hearts, with our bodies, with our souls, with our life.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Father, we love you, god. We just thank you so much for your word, god. We thank you that you have not left us without a witness that every day. We walk outside and, god, we see your glory, we see your majesty, we see your handiwork, we see your creation that is declaring, displaying, screaming, god, that you have eternal power. God, we thank you for your word and, god, I pray that we would be a people who pursue you, who seek you on a daily basis by getting into your word, god, so that you can remind us who you are and what you've called us to do. And, god, I pray that you would continue to empower us by your Holy Spirit, that we may be your witnesses, that other people would come to know you and to experience you because of the story you have put within us, because of what you've done in us. God, we love you. We pray these things in Jesus' name and all God's people said amen. Let's sing to him right now.